Beverage dispensing valves having electronic control means for determining the fill level of a cup are well know in the art. Various examples are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 3, 916,963 to McIntosh; U.S. Pat. No. 4,236,553 to Reichenberger; U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,285 to Belland; U.S. Pat. No. 4,753,277 to Holcomb et al.; and Re. U.S. Pat. No. 34,337 to Bennett. In general, these valves utilize the strategy of providing for an electric current to flow through the stream of beverage to an actuating arm operated by the cup, whereby continuity is established when beverage overflows the cup rim establishing electrical conductivity with the actuator arm. These valves have the advantage of permitting the operator to attend to a different activity rather than being required to wait while the beverage cup is being filled. Generally speaking, valves of this type work quite well. However, changes in line voltages or frequencies and transient voltage spikes have been found to result in false triggering, hence premature shut-off. In addition, threshold sensitivities can be affected in high humidity situations where if the sensitivity is set too low conduction of current as a result of the high humidity can also result in such faulty operation. Naturally, early closing of the valve is wasteful of time and requires the operator to either restart the filling procedure or override the automatic filling feature and fill the cup manually.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to have an automatic filling beverage dispensing valve that is resistant to premature shut-downs resulting from false triggering conditions.